My Birthday Song Movie Review – Times of India
STORY
A 40th birthday celebration of a successful ad-executive turns into a nightmare which he may or may not recover from.
REVIEW
For a man celebrating his 40th birthday, Rajiv Kaul (Sanjay Suri) has all a person would want in life at that age. He has a beautiful wife Ritu (Zenia Starr), two sweet kids and his business is booming as well. As his birthday party is in full swing, an attractive woman named Sandy (Norah Fatehi) catches his fancy and there is a visible chemistry between the two. With Sandy deciding to stick around after the party, things seem to heat up between them. The question is whether or not Rajiv will stray. And if he does, will the price he has to pay for his transgressions be worth the punishment meted out to him?
For his debut film, Samir Soni has chosen a rather tough subject. More on the lines of Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking or even an episode of Black Mirror, this is an open ended mystery where the entire payoff lies in the story. Then again, a complex story such as this one needs an experienced filmmaker. Also, the fact that the story is layered and there are multiple timelines running through the film, the treatment could have been slicker. What we see instead, is one scene following another without any real structure and the narrative gets a bit incoherent at times. Then again, a tight runtime of 96 minutes keeps you involved in the story. Visually, too, the film is quite stunning thanks to cinematography by Shubham Kasera.
Sanjay Suri, as a guilt-ridden birthday boy delivers a credible performance and so does Norah Fatehi. The production values are top notch and so is the music. While the narrative may get a bit repetitive, like how birthday songs can get, maybe that’s what the director intended. That being said, this is one party you may want to attend if you like your cinema to be dark and mysterious.
